How to Identify High-ROI Growth Levers for Maximum Business Impact | Direct Experiment

How to Identify the “Growth Levers” That Can Give the Biggest ROI in Your Business

Every business, whether a startup or an established brand, has one common objective — growth. But in a world overloaded with data, marketing channels, and endless optimization ideas, the real challenge is knowing which growth levers actually deliver the highest ROI. You can spend hours analyzing analytics dashboards or experimenting with new campaigns, but unless you pinpoint the most impactful areas for improvement, you might be scaling efforts that don’t move the needle.

So, how do you identify the right growth levers — the ones that truly drive business performance? Let’s break it down step-by-step.

1. Start with a Clear Understanding of Your Customer Journey

Before identifying growth levers, you need to map out your customer journey — from awareness to conversion to retention.

Ask yourself:

Where do users first interact with your brand?

What friction points exist before they convert?

What happens after they become customers?

By breaking the journey into stages, you can identify where the biggest drop-offs occur and where small improvements can have an outsized impact. For example, if 70% of users drop off between adding an item to the cart and completing a purchase, your checkout flow may be a high-ROI optimization area.

Tools like Direct Experiment’s A/B testing platform can help you test different variations of landing pages, buttons, or pricing models to see which version improves user flow and conversion rates.

2. Identify the Metrics That Truly Matter

Not all metrics are created equal. Vanity metrics like page views or social followers might look impressive but don’t always correlate with business growth.

To uncover your growth levers, focus on north-star metrics — the ones directly tied to revenue or retention.
For example:

For eCommerce: Conversion Rate, Average Order Value, Repeat Purchase Rate

For SaaS: Activation Rate, Trial-to-Paid Conversion, Churn Rate

For Publishers: Engagement Time, Newsletter Sign-ups, Click-through Rate

Once you isolate your north-star metric, break it into sub-metrics and start running A/B tests to identify which changes drive meaningful movement in that metric.

With Direct Experiment, you can easily set up experiments targeting these metrics and visually see which variations outperform your baseline. This data-driven approach helps you focus on what truly boosts ROI.

3. Analyze User Behavior to Spot High-Impact Opportunities

Your analytics tools — like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Heatmaps — can reveal how users behave on your website. But raw data alone isn’t enough. You need to translate insights into action.

Look for patterns like:

Pages with high traffic but low conversions

CTAs (calls to action) with poor click-through rates

Onboarding steps where users drop off

Each of these is a potential growth lever waiting to be optimized.

For instance, if your pricing page has high views but low conversions, test different pricing layouts or benefit highlights. Using Direct Experiment’s A/B testing tool, you can run controlled experiments to validate which change — maybe simplified pricing tiers or an emphasized trial button — delivers the biggest lift.

4. Prioritize Levers Using the ICE Framework

Once you identify potential areas to optimize, you’ll likely have a long list of ideas. But not all are worth the same effort or investment.

Use the ICE Framework to prioritize:

Impact – How big could the improvement be if successful?

Confidence – How confident are you in the potential outcome?

Ease – How easy is it to implement the change?

Score each idea on these three factors (on a scale of 1–10), then focus on the ones with the highest combined score.

This ensures your team works on high-impact, low-effort opportunities first — maximizing ROI while maintaining momentum.

5. Run Controlled A/B Tests to Validate Growth Levers

Assumptions are risky. The only way to confirm a growth lever’s real impact is by testing it scientifically. That’s where A/B testing becomes a cornerstone of growth strategy.

With Direct Experiment, you can easily create variations of your web pages, run experiments across different audience segments, and get statistically valid results. Whether it’s testing new headlines, button placements, or onboarding flows, A/B testing removes the guesswork and quantifies ROI before scaling changes across your entire user base.

For example:

Variation A: Shorter checkout form

Variation B: Multi-step checkout process
The results might show that Variation A improves completion rate by 18%, directly impacting revenue without additional marketing spend — a perfect example of a high-ROI growth lever discovered through experimentation.

6. Double Down on What Works

Once you’ve validated a growth lever, the next step is to double down. Scale the winning version across your site or campaigns and measure its long-term effect.

Keep monitoring — because what works today might evolve as user behavior changes. That’s why continuous experimentation is key. Direct Experiment makes this ongoing process seamless by allowing you to schedule, manage, and compare multiple tests in one dashboard.

7. Make Experimentation a Habit, Not a Project

The most successful growth teams don’t treat optimization as a one-time effort. They adopt a culture of continuous experimentation.

Regularly testing assumptions, iterating based on results, and learning from both wins and losses helps maintain steady growth. Over time, this approach compounds, giving you a strong competitive advantage.

Final Thoughts

Identifying the biggest ROI growth levers in your business isn’t about guessing — it’s about testing, learning, and optimizing systematically.

By understanding your customer journey, prioritizing key metrics, and leveraging A/B testing platforms like Direct Experiment, you can confidently invest in strategies that truly drive measurable growth.

In the digital age, where small changes can lead to massive outcomes, the smartest growth decision you can make is to experiment more and assume less.